While I always strive to avoid speculation in situations like this, the (allegedly) transgender person known as Audrey (or “Aiden”) Hale does not seem to fit the MAGA profile. It is not yet known if Hale’s motive was political, or if she/“he” was just crazy. Therefore I must withhold judgment on whether this shooting — which killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville — could be described as transgender terrorism.
Given what we know about media bias, expect this story to disappear with astonishing rapidity. Doesn’t fit the narrative, you see.
Local law enforcement confirm, Nashville school shooter is a biological female that identifies as trans. pic.twitter.com/uOMJhCQ0IL
If you live near Philadelphia, you almost certainly know Steve Keeley, one of the city’s most popular television reporters, who has been at WTXF-TV (Fox 29) for nearly three decades. The man is a local legend, and in recent years has been covering the outrageous epidemic of criminal violence that has plagued Philadelphia since Soros-backed Larry Krasner was elected the city’s district attorney. As recently as 2014, Philly had fewer than 250 homicides annually, but Krasner was elected DA in 2017 and the homicide rate began rising almost immediately: 353 in 2018 and the same number the next year. Then in 2020, the city well and truly earned the nickname “Killadelphia,” as there were 499 homicides, an astonishing 41% increase in a single year. But 2021 was even worse — indeed, the 562 homicides in 2021 were the most in the city’s history — and the next year, the total fell just slightly from that all-time record, as 516 were victims of homicide in “Killadelphia” in 2022. That’s just murders, you understand, and doesn’t take into account all the armed robberies, aggravated assaults, carjackings, etc. How bad is crime in Philadelphia? Literally worse than Chicago, at least on a per-capita basis.
Obviously, if your city suddenly turns into a chaotic slaughterhouse of lawless violence, that’s a pretty important story for a local journalist to cover, and Steve Keeley has been covering it relentlessly. Covering it so well, in fact, that a bunch of weenies and wusses in Philadelphia’s journalism hive are complaining that Keeley is covering too much crime:
Philadelphia magazine analyzed a study of the city’s media and concluded that Mr. Keeley’s station devoted far more stories to local crime than any other news outlet. In a follow-up piece in the magazine, several critics came forward with negative takes on Mr. Keeley, including some of his media colleagues.
Cherri Gregg, a longtime radio journalist in Philadelphia who now hosts a show for the city’s NPR-affiliated WHYY, told the magazine that Mr. Keeley’s work “definitely makes me cringe” and that “[c]rime coverage can be very harmful and scares people.”
She said she feared that minority communities, specifically men, could be hurt by such journalism. She did not express concern for people in those same communities who have been victimized by crime, nor did she say the reporting was inaccurate. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong chimed in as well, calling Mr. Keeley’s Twitter feed “disturbing,” but not because of the constant crime in the city.
Let the reader guess what Cherri Gregg and Jenice Armstrong have in common (I checked; your guess is correct), but beyond the obvious fact of their membership in the same demographic group that’s committing at least 80% of the violent crime in Philly, they have something else in common: Neither one of them is anywhere near as experienced as Steve Keeley in covering actual news, as opposed to engaging in the kind of thinly-disguised progressive activism that is considered “journalism” at liberal outlets like NPR and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
How many times do I have to repeat myself? I keep saying Crazy People Are Dangerous and yet, despite my warnings, the craziness continues.
The SPLC refers to the “Sovereign Citizens Movement,” but since when is psychosis a political agenda? Nevertheless, I’ll quote the SPLC:
The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. Sovereigns believe that the American government set up by the founding fathers, under a common-law legal system, was secretly replaced. They think the replacement government swapped common law for admiralty law, which is the law of the sea and international commerce.
Some sovereigns believe this perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933, when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that U.S. judges and lawyers, who they believe are foreign agents, know about this hidden government takeover but argue against it, denying the sovereigns’ motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces.
These people are daft, deranged, demented, berserk, bonkers, off their rockers, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
“Sovereign citizen ideology . . . experienced a resurgence in popularity during the pandemic,” it is claimed, and as to why this “resurgence” happened, probably it’s because emotionally vulnerable people had lots of spare time and drifted into the murkier corners of the web. Finding themselves immersed in decentralized fringe ecosystems—whether they were day-trading obscure altcoins or skirting traditional banking oversight to gamble on offshore tether casinos—these folks inevitably fell down algorithmic rabbit holes. Once primed to distrust the system, they started binge-watching YouTube videos by kooks who told them, “Naw, you don’t need no driver’s license! Don’t need none of them tags on your truck, neither! It’s the global elites trying to control you with their so-called ‘traffic laws’!” This is what it always seems to come down to — cops pull over a guy with a bogus tag on his car, and the guy claims he doesn’t have to answer any questions, etc.
Why traffic laws? Answer me this question. Of all the legislation on the books to which anyone might conceivably object, why is it that these “sovereign citizens” decide they’re going to rebel against allegedly corrupt authorities by disregarding traffic laws? Could the craziness of this “movement” be any more self-evident? I don’t think so.
This is what Chase Allan of Farmington, Utah, looked like before he got all wacko with this “sovereign citizen” nonsense, which led directly to his death last week:
Allan, 25, was pulled over in the parking lot of the Farmington post office March 1 after an officer noticed an illegitimate license plate on the back of his car, which was not registered. At the time, it was considered a routine traffic stop, Farmington police Chief Eric Johnsen has said.
In the body camera footage released during a police news conference Wednesday, Allan can be heard telling the officer who approaches his car, “I don’t need registration and I don’t answer questions.” The officer then called for backup, and four more officers headed to the scene.
Police have said Allan initially refused to provide any identification to the officer and “asserted his independence from the laws of the land.”
In the footage, Allan can be heard saying he is “not giving [the officer] jurisdiction” over him, adding that the officer is not allowed to stop him. Allan can be seen holding up his phone during the traffic stop, appearing to record the officer as they interact.
The body camera footage shows Allan eventually hand the officer his passport, but he does not provide a driver license. After backup arrives at the scene, an officer orders Allan to step out of the vehicle, but he refuses, stating that he is “not required to.”
As police again order Allan to step out of the car, Allan can be heard saying, “If you try and force me, then we’re going to have an issue.”
“If you don’t step out of the car, then we’re going to break the window and pull you out,” an officer can be heard replying.
Seconds after that reply, officers appear to force Allan’s driver’s side door open, the footage shows. Almost immediately, as an officer leans over Allan, an officer can be heard shouting that Allan has a gun.
A barrage of gunfire can then be heard in the footage, as officers open fire for about five seconds while simultaneously stepping away from the vehicle, the footage shows.
You can click here to watch the whole video. I sent it to one of my sons in a text message, saying the “sovereign citizen” died in a hail of gunfire — as they all should. Which is both (a) my habitual sarcasm, but also (b) actually true. I mean, if armed kooks are going to drive around with no tags on their cars and start trouble whenever the cops pull them over, this craziness is basically self-inflicted genocide. And guess what?
NOBODY’S GOING TO LOOT WALMART IN YOUR HONOR.
White people getting shot by cops? Nobody cares. Ben Crump ain’t going to show up and “demand justice.” You’re white, you f**ked with the cops, now you’re dead, and nobody cares. This idiot Chase Allan is every bit as dead as George Floyd, but white people aren’t tearing down statues or smashing windows downtown. CNN’s not going 24/7 with updates on the story. Joe Biden isn’t commenting. None of the things are happening that would have happened if Chase Allan was black. There’s some kind of lesson here, and what is that lesson? Crazy People Are Dangerous
Jamie Marsicano, who was booked under the name “James Marsicana,” is a 29-year-old law student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, according to the school’s website.
Marsicano — who identifies as a “white trans femme organizer” in online profiles — was arrested in June 2020 and charged with assault on a government official and resisting a public officer during the George Floyd protests in Charlotte. Those charges were later dropped.
Between June 2020 and September 2020, Marsicano was arrested five times, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
Y’know, I’m old enough to remember when drag queens in Atlanta were mainly about lip-syncing show tunes in gay bars, not fire-bombing police.
Ehret Nottingham, 22, is a serial activist who has also taken a central role in pro-abortion and fair wage rallies.
In a interview in June 2020, while studying political science at Colorado State University, Nottingham said he ‘became an activist’ in 2018.
He described himself as a climate activist who was also involved in Black Lives Matter protests. He said he has a ‘whole lot of privilege and a whole lot of ability to affect the world’. ‘The role in my future that I hope to achieve is to be an advocate and the platform I have to make change,’ said Nottingham. He said he met ‘most of my activist friends’ through Instagram.
The ambition to “be an advocate” — where does it come from? Perhaps from the recognition that it’s better than working an actual job, doing something useful and productive to pay the bills.
Mattia Luini, 30, and his fellow protesters are accused of carrying out Sunday’s “coordinated attack” on the under-construction Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which saw cops pelted with Molotov cocktails and fireworks.
Luini, whose late father, Ivan Luini, helped popularize high-end plastic furniture in the US, was still stuck behind bars as of Tuesday afternoon, online court records showed.
His mother, Micaela Martegani, who is involved in the Big Apple’s art world, told The Post Tuesday that she’d only spoken to her son briefly since his arrest — and that he’d insisted the violent incident was “completely random.”
“We haven’t been able to talk in much detail. He doesn’t know much of what happened,” Martegani said.
Luini had said he was heading to Atlanta over the weekend only to attend a concert and “protest the development of the forest,” according to his mom.
Police, however, say he was among those who allegedly staged an attack to protest the $90 million development of the training center — dubbed “Cop City.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what Luini, who appears to have been raised in New York City, does for a living or if he still calls the Big Apple home.
His businessman father, Ivan, was president of the New York-based Kartell US — a high-end Italian furniture company that specialized in plastic design.
The elder Luini was killed in a small plane crash near the Colorado-Wyoming border back in 2006, the New York Times reported at the time.
Meanwhile, Luini’s mom is the founder and director of More Art — a nonprofit organization that helps create public art projects across the city.
Martegani told The Post on Tuesday she wasn’t sure if she would head to Atlanta to meet with her currently imprisoned son.
“He’s doing okay. I spoke to him recently but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to go down to Atlanta,” she said.
Cops have accused Luini and his fellow protesters of using the “cover of a peaceful protest” at the proposed training center to unleash havoc.
“They changed into black clothing, entered the construction area, and began to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers,” cops said. “The agitators destroyed multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism.”
Degenerate offspring of wealthy capitalists — it’s an all-too-familiar tale in a nation where liberalism has become the religion of the elite.
All these Antifa vermin — the “white trans femme organizer” from North Carolina, the “privileged” climate activist from Colorado, the heir to a furniture fortune from New York — did not just show up in Atlanta coincidentally. Authorities in Georgia are investigating these “mostly peaceful protests” and the individuals involved in organizing them. If you suspect that there is a nationwide criminal conspiracy behind the “Stop Cop City” protests, you are certainly not alone in that suspicion.
Three Los Angeles police officers were shot Wednesday evening and the suspected gunman was dead after an ensuing standoff, authorities said.
Officers had gone to Lincoln Heights, an older neighborhood of single-family homes, at around 4:30 p.m. and the shootings were reported about two hours later, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Norma Eisenman said.
The officers were hospitalized in stable condition, LAPD Chief Michel Moore tweeted Wednesday night.
Two were patrol officers and the third was a K9 unit officer, Eisenman said.
The LAPD said it began when officers spotted a parolee wanted for an unknown felony and tried to take him into custody, but he ran and hid in a shed.
According to the LAPD, K9 officers responded, found him and launched a “chemical agent” into the shed. The suspect then opened the shed door and began firing at officers, striking three.
Officers returned fire and backed out. It was unclear whether the suspect was hit, CBS Los Angeles reports.
SWAT officers were called and deployed a robot that saw the suspect wasn’t moving. SWAT officers then used a second robot to insert more gas into the shed before officers moved in. The Los Angeles Fire Department determined the suspect was dead.
At one point, the LAPD issued a citywide tactical alert, meaning officers from across the city are available to respond to the scene if needed. Officers, including SWAT team members, flooded into the area and sealed it off.
Some neighbors were evacuated from their homes by officers when the standoff was ongoing, CBS L.A. said, while other residents in the surrounding area were advised to stay inside and lock their doors.
“Everyday the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department put themselves in harm’s way, tonight is a reminder that the danger is very real,” Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference, CBS L.A. reported. “I’m relieved and grateful that these three brave officers are in stable condition, and are able to have a conversation with two of them when I checked in on them just now. I deeply appreciate their service and let them know that their city stands with them, and I very much look forward to their recovery.”
Why should police be putting their lives at risk when District Attorney George Gascón goes out of his way to turn criminals loose? What’s the point in arresting criminals, if the D.A. won’t put them in prison? A career prosecutor in the D.A.’s office won a jury verdict of $1.5 million after she sued Gascón for retaliating against her because of her criticisms of his policies. A dozen other similar lawsuits are pending, but the problem in Los Angeles and other major cities cannot be isolated to a few rogue “progressive” prosecutors. The problem is the people — if voters are so stupid and/or immoral as to elect someone like Gascón, they deserve whatever harmful consequences follow that election.
Antifa terrorists set fire to construction equipment at the site of a planned Atlanta police training facility Sunday, hurling rocks and fireworks at officers who responded to the riot scene. And this vandal horde of commies is almost entirely composed of outsiders:
Atlanta police identified 23 suspects charged with domestic terrorism after allegedly launching an attack against the construction site for a police and fire training facility dubbed “Cop City.”
The Atlanta Police Department revealed that all but two of the arrestees are from out of state. Another two are from out of the country.
Dimitri LeNy is from France and Fredrique Robert-Paul is from Canada.
Three suspects – Ayla King, Alexis Paplai and Timothy Bilodeau – are from Massachusetts.
There are two from Arizona: Samuel Ward and Max Biederman. From New York, there are Mattia Luini and Priscilla Grim.
Another pair – Kayley Meissner and Grace Martin – are from Wisconsin.
Kamryn Pipes is from Louisiana. Maggie Gates is from Indiana. Ehret Nottingham is from Colorado. Victor Puertas is from Utah. Amin Chaoui is from Virginia. James Marsicano is from North Carolina. Emma Bogush is from Connecticut. Luke Harper is from Florida. Colin Dorsey is from Maine. And Zoe Larmey is from Tennessee.
The only suspects with Georgia addresses are Thomas Jurgens and Jack Beaman.
“What happened last night was not peaceful protest – it was violence. Plain and simple,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement Monday. “We will not tolerate this destruction of property, and we will seek to ensure that those who have engaged in this criminal behavior are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.” . . .
On an appearance on Fox News earlier Monday, Carr described those arrested as part of a “national network, an international group of people that are organized to come to our state to undermine a public safety training center.”
“This wasn’t about a public safety training center. This was about anarchy, and this was about an attempt to destabilize,” Atlanta Chief of Police Darin Schierbaum said Sunday night, telling reporters at the scene that both the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have joined the probe into the incident.
Thanks to the generosity of readers, I’ve got a little money left over from last week’s trip to CPAC, and if these commie clowns keep causing trouble down home, I may decide to make a shoe-leather excursion.
Before I get to the context of the headline, first the news:
The office Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., released an update on Monday regarding his health after the Democratic Senator checked himself into a hospital for clinical depression earlier this month.
Fetterman’s communications director Joe Calvello said the Democratic senator was “doing well” and working with doctors as he “remains on the path to recovery.”
“He is visiting with staff and family daily, and his staff are keeping him updated on Senate business and news,” Calvello said in a statement.
So they say, but when was the last time they allowed anyone to actually see Fetterman? He has been unable to perform his Senate duties for weeks, so that Pennsylvanians effectively have half the Senate representation to which they are entitled. Pennsylvanians are starting to notice this, and one county GOP chairman took to Facebook on Monday to demand that Fetterman make a public appearance:
Because of the now confirmed lies that were told during the 2022 general election regarding the health of Senator John Fetterman, as well as the threats made against a journalist who interviewed him, the Washington County Republican Party refuses to take assurances from the Office of the Senator or Democrat operatives that Fetterman is able to carry out his duties as Senator. As such, we call upon Senator Fetterman to appear on camera to show us he is alive and well, and if he is unable to do so, we call upon our elected Representatives in Washington, Senator Casey and Congressman Reschenthaler, to intervene immediately.
Ultimately, if Fetterman is unable or unwilling to carry out his duties as a United States Senator, then we ask for his resignation and call for a special election to be held this year; no more lies or games.
Being told that Fetterman is essentially brain dead and it’s being hidden because keeping him in office until August 18th avoids a special election which Republicans would most certainly win.
This must be investigated.
A U.S. Senator is “essentially brain dead“?
Certainly this would be newsworthy, if true, and given that the public hasn’t actually seen Fetterman in weeks, how do we know if it’s true or not? Therefore, the burden is on Democrats to disprove this claim, and a mere statement claiming that Fetterman “remains on the path to recovery” won’t suffice. If, as his spokesman claims, Fetterman “is visiting with staff and family daily,” staying “updated on Senate business,” etc., then shouldn’t he able to make a brief public appearance, say a few words in front of the cameras, just to reassure Pennsylvanians that he is healthy? What are Democrats trying to hide?
The brilliance of Cardillo’s tweet about Fetterman being “brain dead” is that its very outrageousness requires a response. The wilder the rumor, the easier it should be to disprove, right? And so if Democrats fail to disprove it, people will naturally start to suspect maybe it is true.
This reminded me of one of the late Republican operative Lee Atwater’s most legendary moves. In 1980, Democratic state Sen. Tom Turnipseed ran for a South Carolina congressional seat, challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Floyd Spence. In media interviews, Turnipseed had previously disclosed getting electroshock treatments for depression when he was teenager. Working for the Spence campaign, Atwater was accused of “planting” questions with reporters about this, and when confronted with the accusation, Atwater’s reply was that he would not respond to allegations made by someone who had been “hooked up to jumper cables.” Some people were outraged by this comment, but it was a memorable sound bite — the phrase stuck in people’s minds — and Atwater kept repeating it until, on Election Day, Spence beat Turnipseed by a double-digit margin, 56%-44%. This is how you win elections.
Calling Fetterman “brain dead” may be an exaggeration, but the phrase is memorable, and if, as Fetterman’s spokesman claims, the Senator is “on the path to recovery,” why shouldn’t they be willing to demonstrate this by having Fetterman appear at a press conference? Also, while we’re asking questions, perhaps Fetterman’s spokesman can explain why the Senator’s wife took their kids and left the country.
A broken clock is right twice a day, and even one of the most reliable liberal propaganda organs can’t deny Pete Buttigieg is a liar:
The Washington Post reviewed “every possible regulatory change” that was made under the Trump administration and found that none of them contributed to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
“We decided to examine every possible regulatory change made under Trump that could be related to the accident and assess whether it could have made an impact,” read a review published Monday by Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post.
“From our analysis, none of the regulatory changes made during the Trump administration at this point can be cited as contributing to the accident,” Kessler added.
The review of “every possible regulatory change” made under Trump was conducted after U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was called out for falsely claiming that a proposed rule withdrawn in 2018 (under the Trump administration) had contributed to the train disaster in Ohio.
Even a member of Biden’s own administration (National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy) called Buttigieg’s claims about the East Palestine train derailment “misinformation.”
On Thursday, the New York Times also acknowledged in a report that the claims that former President Donald Trump’s administration was responsible for the train derailment in East Palestine due to it rolling back a rail safety rule is inaccurate.
But by that point, it was already too late as the false claim initially made by Buttigieg on February 14 had already circulated on social media where people regurgitated the transportation secretary’s remarks, spreading confusion and falsehoods across the internet.
If even the Washington Post is compelled to side with Trump against Buttigieg, that’s really bad news for the Buttigieg 2024 campaign.
